I write the words

Obviously Sellars and Adams have worked together long and fruitfully, and collegiality should count for something; but if, as a composer, I were presented with this libretto, I’d have torn it to shreds.
- Mark Adamo, on Doctor Atomic

What the hell is a librettist? I've written a libretto, and I still have no clue. If Le Nozze di Figaro is by Mozart, with a libretto by da Ponte, what percent of the opera is da Ponte's? 50%? 0%? What about when two people sit down and decide to write an opera together, like Alice Goodman and John Adams have? It would be fascinating (but probably not useful) to look at what percent cut of the profits of performance each of them gets. I would have loved to overhear that conversation. But because we're asking what the hell a librettist is, we also get to ask what the hell an opera composer is. And maybe this is where things get touchy.

We in music aren't priviledged, by-the-by: film has way more problems. Where do you start when you have a director, a screenwriter, an original writer (of the book, play, whatever), actors, editor, cinematographer? Cameraperson? Purely by convention, we attribute authorship to the director. "A film by Francis Ford Coppola." But this has not always been the case, and many people (including lots of screenwriters) feel that the writer should have credit, and this seems to make more sense - or does it? What about something like Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which to me plays like an opera of images and evocations and (yes) of sound? There are films that only "exist" when they are in film, which is to say that the essence, the message, the good stuff is the stuff that happens on screen, and doesn't exist on paper. What then?

The easy answer (and, if there is a right one, probably the right answer) is that it is a sliding scale: There Will Be Blood is maybe 99% directing, Cast Away is maybe half story half directing, Legally Blonde is 40% story, 10% directing, 50% Reese Witherspoon. That is who those movies "belong to." Our conscience, however, is not satisfied by that answer. Because what the sliding scale neglects, what it doesn't account for, is the idea of accountability - with a compound author there is no way to tell who is responsible for what. A work of art is not like a house, built by a team of carpenters and masons and what have you - art is an utterance, a statement made by somebody. Which is why we ask questions like, "What does this mean?" or "Why is this here, and not there?" There is a reason, an intention behind every gesture.

Which is maybe part of the reason why I think the issue of authorship is more problematic in opera than film. Yes, we say that the director is the author of the film, but more realistically, the film exists on its own - it is lofted upward from the masses that produce it, and it earns a kind of independence. When I say Don Giovanni you think Mozart, but what do you think when I say Citizen Kane? Maybe Orson Welles, but if you do, it's still not with the same duality, the same necessity that binds Mozart to Don Giovanni. More likely you just think of Citizen Kane, the movie, and whatever that might mean for you. This is not the case in music.

How do I see the breakdown of authorship in an opera? 100% composer, 0% librettist. I think this is the only way it can work. A good libretto is one that inspires, evokes, and disappears, in the same way that a tonal language or an old text does. If you are distracted by something as you listen, an untucked edge or an errant word, then something has gone wrong. A libretto may be authored, but when it is taken by a composer it becomes a source, just like genre is a source, just like G# minor is a source. It may sound like I am being harsh to myself and librettists, but I am actually putting the pressure on composers. If you want opera to sit alongside your symphonies and trios and quartets in your oevre, then you must take responsibility for your materials and what you do with them.

I am also of the opinion that Doctor Atomic fails, in large part because the libretto kept drawing my attention away from the opera. It's clunky; you can easily see where the ideas came from, and how they would have looked appealing on the drawing board but fail in practice. The language is too rich poetically to work in a sung medium. Peter Sellars is a clever guy, but not a writer, and - like all clever non-writers who try to write - tries to cram too much in, too much of the "good stuff" he knows is part of good art. The libretto may work as a poem, but what Sellars forgets is that music is already a metaphor - it's already a reading, an interpretation. If you have a metaphor within a metaphor, where is the meaning? It is lost. Thus Doctor Atomic loses itself in abstraction and pretty language, and forgets its footing.

Ringmistress

Isn't this a great song? I ask the question with absolutely no trace of a snicker. I am humble before it; I marvel at its feat. Ever since Britney's "comeback" she has hit a note that is absolutely right for her, one that threatened ever since "Baby One More Time" but was watered down by the necessities of the late-90s pop idiom. Now, technology, the world, whatever, has caught up with her, and she can finally make the music she was born to make. She has tried on a huge range of personas, from coquettish schoolgirl ("Baby One More Time") to doeful virgin ("Sometimes") to panting sexpot ("Slave For U"), but in her newest incarnation she has found the one that fits: consummate entertainer. The new songs get this cold, and "Circus" is the culmination of them all.

As I go back now and listen to "Gimme More," the song that got her back into the game, I think I'm already starting to forget how fresh and how strong it was when it first came out. This was a new Britney, confirmed by the fact that nobody ever called her "Britney Spears" anymore. Whatever else the paparazzi years did for her, they put her and the world on a first-name basis. Most pop stars are strangers; but we've known Britney for a decade now, from pop girl to messed up mom, and we know her too well not to care - even if we pretend not to.

But I wanted to talk about the music. Circus is so complex that it is easier to approach obliquely, through earlier songs that contain seeds of its genius but fall short of its audacity and achievement. Britney's songs have always had moments of inspiration that absolutely work - for example, when the main motive in "Toxic" appears in retrograde:



Or this inspired falsetto lick at the end of "Gimme More":



But her songs have also had a tendency to over-electronicize, and this is a mistake. "Toxic," for example, suffers from too little Britney. The electronics overwhelm her airy, thin voice, and half the time it sounds not like Britney but a chorus of two or three girls, none of them Britney. What's needed is the edge and provocation, the menacing, more grown-up quality that the electronics provide, but with Britney still running the song.

Which brings us to "Circus." Immediately we have a throwback to an older time - the title, the accordion boom-chuck-chuck that opens the song. But there is also the menace of the 21st century in the beat, which is electronic only in the sense that it resembles the hum of machinery, or the off-stage whir of an engine on standby:



This is how to use tech in Britney: not with your typical dance/techno manipulations, but as the evocation of something alive.

Now look at the video. The beginning of the song crackles with energy, but the video is patient - look at how slowly she puts on her jewelry, how we follow every movement. The first 25 seconds of the video average out to an astonishing 2.25 seconds per shot, unbelievably slow for this kind of music video. Now watch the montage at 0:25. There is a move away from the high-gloss polish of her earlier videos; here, the scene engages with its liveness. Notice the vibration around the edges of the shot, the unsteady camera, the erratic centering of the subject.

And then the song begins. For such an explosive, energetic song, the first half is remarkably spare - if you listen carefully to the verse there is really only Britney, the whir of the machine and an incredibly compact percussion track. Lyrically, the song is insiduous. It begins narratively ("There's only two types of people in this world...") and then reveals itself to be a story about herself ("Well I'm a put-on-a-show kind of girl"). "Piece of Me" was also a story about herself, practically to the point of autobiography, but you realize that Britney doesn't work best when she is being defensive or too "real." At a deep level, what we want from her is entertainment, and that "Circus" provides in spades.

There's only two types of people in the world
The ones that entertain, and the ones that observe
Well baby, I'm a put-on-a-show kind of girl
Don't like the backseat, gotta be first

I'm like a ringleader, I call the shots
I'm like a firecracker, I make it hot
When I put on a show...

Here we see a pretty typical device, which is to follow the verse (first four lines) with a couple of lines that then provide a transition to the chorus:

I feel the adrenaline moving through my veins
Spotlight on me and I'm ready to break
I'm like a performer, the dance floor is my stage
Better be ready, bet you feel the same

But is it the chorus? What it sounds like is actually a break in the momentum, a slight side-track into what I think of as an epic pop mode before returning to the song. In other words, it's what is usually the third verse, the "different material" that offers a contrast in melody, mood, theme, before the chorus returns and seals the end of the song.

The result of all this mucking about with structure is a tremendous anticipation, reflected in the scenes shot in the music video: you get only half glimpses of Britney backstage, or in a strange corridor that seems just off the ring. Where a pop song normally culminates in a chorus and then deflates slightly on return to the verse, "Circus" has found a way to bristle with potential energy and then release it in a would-be chorus, essentially getting us to lower our guard. And then, where we expect a return to verse, the real chorus comes in, with an energy I find shocking no matter how many times I listen to it:

All eyes on me in the center of the ring
Just like a circus
When I crack that whip everybody gonna trip
Just like a circus

Where a chorus is normally more melodically interesting than a verse, this one compresses the energy of the song into a flat line. I'd like to take a moment here to comment on how brilliant the rhyme is. Aside from the fact that there may be no word in English that rhymes with "circus," let me ask: what would be gained by finding a rhyme for the second line that is not already achieved - or indeed better achieved - by simply repeating the word? Instead, the rhymed word is one that has an effect: the internal "whip"/"trip", all the more effective for being unexpected, since there is a deliberate lack of rhyme in the first line. The over-repetition of the choruses of "Gimme More" and "Womanizer" (which basically consist of the titles on endless loop) here finds a subtler incarnation; "Circus" knows exactly its own limits and strengths.

I mentioned before that the start of the second verse in a pop song is usually accompanied by a letdown in energy. In "Circus," it becomes a reevaluation. You hear the verse with fresh ears, knowing how far this song is willing to go; and when Britney says "There are two types of guys out there," guy or girl, you realize the implicit challenge to yourself: which category do you fall into? The first time she says

Don't stand there watching me, follow me
Show me what you can do

it sounds just like your typical pop song rhetoric - but when it comes again at the end, you feel it as a real and frightening invitation to test your strength against hers.



She can say "Don't stand there watching me" because she knows that you are; she is such a good entertainer that you have to rise to her level just to follow. In the last chorus, when the shrill sirens from "Toxic" come in, it's like a final nose-thumbing, a last ballsy move - an assertion, if there still needed to be one, that she can get away with anything and make it work.

If we must ask questions, let us ask the right ones

Sometimes, when an answer cannot be found to a question, it is not the answerer's fault but the questioner's. How a question is framed is often the cause of an inability to find an answer. Is that perhaps why "What is the purpose of life," or "What is our purpose in life," and so forth, engender so many varied and often passionate answers, but ultimately none which satisfy?

One answer is that our only real duty, our only real striving point, is to achieve happiness. Still this is not clear. Do we mean a total of happiness over the span of our lives? Do we mean to be happy in every moment? Or do we mean that only the last moment - the moment before death - needs to be filled with happiness, since happiness exists in the present and erases all that comes before?

It is often remarked that geniuses and other people who benefit the race as a whole, or are pioneers of some great change in the world, are seldom happy. Hegel speaks of this in the Philosophy of History, and essentially says that their sacrifice is one that must be made, for their action transcends their limited particularity. How is that consolation for them? They may have their own motivation, their own reason for which such a life is the only possible pursuit, but ultimately I do not think it is selfish (or rather, it is selfish but it is not amoral, not even incorrect) to prize your own life and your happiness over the advances of the world. For ultimately no one can bring you happiness or invest thought in your life but yourself. The external paths which connect our actions to others, the translation of our effort into physical quantity, be it energy, empathy, the way in which our efforts move into the world and then are re-translated into another's life, into change - these are so unpredictable since so complex, without any guarantee that what you have done will make any difference in the ultimate balance. You may see the fruits of your labour directly, and be glad; and think to yourself that you have made a difference - but what difference is this? Are you certain that, ten years from now, fifty years, your difference will have been a positive change in a person's life? Sometimes it may seem, indeed, to be so. But these ways are often unpredictable, and even a person whom you never thought you had influenced, whom you didn't try to help, will consider you to be one of the prime factors in her life. I am not saying that we should give up hope altogether, shut ourselves off from people because no change can be made, because it is clear that change can be made. But we cannot expect that the actions of others will lift us up when we need it, because the ways in which we are touched and inspired are impossible to predict. Thus we must, in the final equation, fend for ourselves.

I believe it a sacred, crucial duty for each person to find their way to a personal, deep, and fulfilled happiness. Yet what does this mean? What is happiness, and how is it measured? One of the great poisons of the so-called developed world is the idea that as human beings our best state is when we are happy all the time. We have an obligation to find spiritual peace, to find physical satisfaction, to take ourselves seriously and afford ourselves any pleasure we may seek, and any moment that is painful or causes us to suffer is a waste, an unnecessity, and is to be rejected as soon as possible. The most insidious agent of this poison may be magazines, which are expert in creating problems where none existed, and then offering solutions to those very same problems - solutions that you, a second ago, did not need. I have actually seen a blurb that read: "Think you're happy? Take this test and find out" on the cover of a magazine. What this manages to do is to remove the reader from the state of unconscious happiness she is already in - for a state of true happiness is perhaps unnoticed, or even unremarkable (but more on this later) - and to then supply their own criteria for happiness. But this is not enough. For it has created suspicion in the reader, an uncertainly and an unwillingness to trust herself in judging those paramaters which she and she alone is qualified to judge. No woman felt her pores to be large until she reads that there are 10 ways she can minimize her pores. There is no problem - and thus no customer - until a problem is created and a solution offered. The worst part, though, is in their unspoken opinion that our goal in life should be to iron out all our small difficulties, because they, being negative, have nothing to offer us.

This lie, that human beings must be pleasured and satisfied at all times, extends beyond the blatant medium of media and into subtler realms, where the naive may feel that they are buying into something deeper than they are capable of. Yoga, for instance, is described as spiritual by its practitioners, and is in fact spoken of in a way that is difficult to understand by the unwashed. This generally means that the converted believe that they hold a secret, and that because of this secret there is a kind of barrier separating them from the unwashed population, those who must be converted to join in the admiration of the secret. The truth is that true spirituality, religious or no, is a difficult and painful process. It may be that many people can discover their true spirituality through yoga, but for most it is a convenient and comfortable way to reap the titular rewards of something that is normally awkward and socially excluded (i.e. organized religion). Thus a young person can sign up for a yoga class and feel that she is doing something good for her soul, that she is finally treating herself well and that she deserves such good treatment, and this reinforcement of the absolute positive will continue to stand in the way of her path towards understanding and wisdom.

At a high enough level, all thought begins to look alike, and all great people share the same thoughts, to paraphrase Emerson. And all great thought seems to point out that in life and in everything there must be balance. There cannot be great without small, there cannot be happiness without pain.

Thinking and Doing

I have always lived too much in my head. I lose myself in abstractions and hypotheticals, and my vision is all peripheral. Nike would be appalled - I can't just do it, I have to think about it first. And I usually end up not doing it.

When I was 12 or 13 I was seized with a sudden panic that I would go my entire life without accomplishing the things I wanted to accomplish, and stuck pieces of paper with the words "TIME IS SLIPPING BY" all over the house. Of course, very little in my attitude to the world changed, and this would set a theme for my life: ideology without application. I am a master plan-maker, I delight in making plans - and somehow the act of planning, the industriousness and initiative of it, absolve me from the need to actually follow through. In fact, I do the most work when I have no plan. But I am addicted, not to real accomplishment, but to the feeling of it.

When you make a plan, you essentially split the universe: there is the universe you invent where you get up at 7am, go running from 7:30 to 8:15, work on your thesis from 8:15 to 10:45 and then take a fifteen minute break before, I don't know, writing at novel at 11:00. And then there is the other universe, unwritten, waiting to realize itself into the ideal you have imagined. After conjuring my alternate universe, I sit there and admire it, while the universe around me shapes itself into something that looks like me sitting on the couch with a strange sort of smile on my face. This is why I get nothing done.

Back in my LiveJournal days I quoted this from RWE: "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." Back then, I thought he was talking about having lots of friends but also getting lots of work done. It probably does mean that, but I think there are a lot of ways to approach the idea. Now, when I look at it, I think that the world and the self are in a kind of perpetual dialog, a back-and-forth where each can spill over into the other and shape it in its own image. To "live after the world's opinion" is to let your circumstances lead you down the river, following the prescribed bends and turns over which you have no control. But this situation, which is one that I think most people in the world find themselves in, most of the time, suggests an alternate possibility as well - one in which the self pours itself outward, and shapes the bends and turns of the river through sheer audacity and will.

Thus the ending of the movie Adaptation (spoilers, probably), in which Charlie Kaufman, a loner who lives in his head and can't say a single coherent thing to any woman he fancies, is given perhaps the greatest gift he's received in his life, a few words from his twin brother Donald as they cower in a dark swamp from a gun-toting Meryl Streep: "You are what you love, not what loves you. I decided that a long time ago." Note the words: they are directional. You are what you love, and in that moment the dialog that Charlie Kaufman has with the world reverses its direction, and the things he imagines begin to actually take place, simply because he now believes that it is possible. How brilliant that Kaufman is a screenwriter, both in life and in the movie. After struggling over a defunct, impotent script (in life and in movie), he at last can write the script for the world in which he lives. At the end of the movie, he tells a girl that he has loved for a very long time that he loves her, for the very first time, and she - miraculously - tells him that she loves him back. He pours himself out, and tunes the world to his vibrating string.